


With teeth

by cuneifire (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 20:37:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18818563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: In your mind, he will forever be fifteen.(Or: Sirius, and the difference betweenI shouldn'tandI won't.)





	With teeth

You will forever remember Regulus as fifteen. It does not matter that Regulus has been dead for more than a decade, that much of him has faded from your memory after all Azkaban has done to you- you can't quite recall how he held himself, the precise type of robes he wore, the curlicues in his handwriting. 

But this, this you remember: you, seventeen, a broom in your hand and the minty taste of the words  _ I'm leaving  _ in your mouth. Him, looking at you with the moon in his eyes, dark lashes and full lips, the pale white slash of his skin just visible through his robes, the tiles of the roof unsteady under his feet, him looking like he might fall and you thinking  _ please don’t, I’ll have to catch you.  _

He said,  _ you could stay.  _ You said,  _ you could leave.  _ Neither of you said  _ with me.  _

You hooked a leg over your broom anyway, and he passed you an unreadable look- his eyes dark and downcast, lips parted, that same look he'd been giving you all of the past year, the one whose meaning you could never quite grasp no matter how you tried.

His hands were clenched into fists, tight in that same way they were whenever you argued with Mother, when you said something out of line, when he saw you across the Great Hall, laughing with James or Remus. But still he met your eyes as he bid you farewell. 

He said  _ goodbye  _ like one says a eulogy, looking up at you like you held the whole of the world in your palm (you'd never known what to do when he gave you that look).

You cast him one last look, and this is how you will always remember him; a touch of a smile on his cheeks, trying to hide tears (he never did learn how to cry: neither did you), his voice raw as he whispered something that might have been  _ I loved you,  _ and it hits you now that you will never know whether that verb was past or present tense (and that makes all the difference.)

You would see him again, of course. Across the Great Hall, passing by in the hallways. But he always looked away, his face blank of any sign of recognition. When you met his eyes, you could swear that you saw something broken- a string pulled too taunt between the two of you, dying and frayed at the edges, glass shattered into a million sharp pieces. 

You would see him again, of course, in your dreams, and in your nightmares too. 

But you will forever remember him as fifteen, because that was the last time he looked at you like he was yours. 


End file.
